Al Leiter does his best Karl Wallenda and somehow keeps it to a 1-0 game through five. F-Rod, go figure, gets it to seven, and then the bullpen starts throwing grapefruits and it’s a 6-0 game heading into the bottom of the 8th.

That’s the shame – within a few frames late in the game, this one went from possible squeaker to way-uphill in a hurry.

Bernie’s “foul homer” in the 8th was just about the summary of his season this year in one AB, huh? The minute that went foul, and it was 0-2, I said to my wife “Watch, now he’ll whiff” – and he did.

You know, since the All-Star break, excluding that one 11-10 wild game in Texas on July 18th, the Yankees are averaging 4.58 runs scored per game. With their pitching situation, 4.58 runs a game is just not going to cut it.

Besides the fact that Boston won tonight, this game hurts because there’s an excellent chance that the Yankees are going to lose 2 of their next 3 games – because of who will be starting them.

Hindsight being 20/20, Sojo should have held him up & let A-Rod bat with two runners on base. But, I don’t really have a problem with Sojo sending Jeter – scoring from 2nd on a single to center field is a high percentage play.

That game last night was the slowest, most disturbingly boring game I’ve seen in a long time. My father called at 9:30 – when it was the bottom of the 4th inning, score of 1-0. That reminded me of some of those “classic” 4-hour Baltimore games!

Just another in a long series of inexplicable bullpen moves: Sturtze completing the 7th inning (with Groom ready to face Morneau at the very least). With a rested bullpen, are we to assume that from now on the fate of the team will rest on the right arm of Tanyon Sturtze? We live or die with his effectiveness? The third best reliever in the pen? With 7 outs to go in a 2-0 game, Red Sox having won already, facing a tough weekend with the Angels whom you can’t seem to beat? It’s not rational, I tells ya.

I’m not going to kill Joe for how he used the pen last night. Look, Santana was Cy Young Santana and that would have been a shutout if Gardenhire lets him go the whole way. When Santana is that good, everything else is pretty much moot. You tip your cap and move on.

Today is a different story. This is a game we should win with Joe Mays on the mound. I expect Joe to keep everyone on a short leash this afternoon.

I don’t argue that you don’t want to kill yourselves in a game you’re not likely to win, but when you’re down one run against a great pitcher through 6, don’t you want to try to take advantage of that? Especially when they take him out early and give you an E or two to work with. Good teams will win most of the games they’re “supposed” to win. You separate yourselves from the pack by winning the ones you’re not supposed to win.